Ablative case

For the physical process, see Ablation. For the spacecraft technology, see Ablative armor.

In grammar, ablative case (abbreviated abl) is a grammatical case (a type of noun inflection) in various languages that is used generally to express motion away from something, although the precise meaning may vary by language. The name "ablative" derives from the Latin ablatus, the (irregular) perfect passive participle of auferre "to carry away".[1] There is no ablative case in modern Germanic languages, such as English.

Indo-European languages

Latin

Main article: Ablative (Latin)

The ablative case in Latin ([casus] ablativus) has various uses, including following various prepositions, in an ablative absolute clause, and adverbially. The ablative case was derived from three Proto-Indo-European cases: ablative (from), instrumental (with), and locative (in/at).

Greek

In Ancient Greek, there was no ablative case; some of its functions were taken by the genitive and others by the dative; the genitive had functions belonging to the Proto-Indo-European genitive and ablative cases.[2] The genitive case with the prepositions ἀπό apó "away from" and ἐκ/ἐξ ek/ex "out of" is an example.

German

German does not have an ablative case in native words, but Latin ablative case-forms were used from the 17th till 19th century after some prepositions, for example after von in von dem Nomine (ablative of the Latin loanword Nomen). Grammarians in that time, like Justus Georg Schottel, Kaspar von Stieler ("der Spate"), Johann Balthasar von Antesperg and Johann Christoph Gottsched, listed an ablative case (as the sixth case after nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative) for German words. They considered the dative case after some prepositions to be an ablative, as in von dem Mann[e] ("from the man" or "of the man") and mit dem Mann[e] ("with the man"), while they considered the dative case after other prepositions or without a preposition as dem Mann[e] to be a dative.

Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

As in Ancient Greek, the functions of the ablative case in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are performed by the genitive case. Of three forms of genitive in Serbian, as well in Croatian and Bosnian, namely partitive, possessive and ablative, the noun in the ablative genitive marks the origin of something, so as departure or detachment from it.

Albanian

The ablative case is found in Albanian where it is the fifth case and is called rasa rrjedhore.

Sanskrit

The ablative case, known as apādāna (अपादान) in Sanskrit, is the fifth case (panchami) in the grammar, and has similar function to that of Latin.

Sanskrit nouns in this case often refer to a subject "out of" which or "from" whom something (an action, an object) has arisen or occurred—e.g., patram vṛkṣāt patati "the leaf falls from the tree".

This case is also used for nouns in several other senses, e.g., where the action occurs "because of" or "without" a certain noun; nouns indicating distance or direction. When it appears with a comparative adjective, e.g. śreṣṭhatamam, "the best," the ablative is used to refer to that which the adjective is comparing, "better than X".

Armenian

In the Western Armenian language, the ablative case is rendered by the suffix -e (indefinite) or -en (definite).

Mart - man
Marten - from the man
Marte - from (a) man
Doon - house
Doonen - from the house
Doone - from (a) house

In Eastern Armenian, the suffix -its is used for both definite and indefinite nouns.

Mard- man Mardits- from man

Toon- house T'nits- from house

Both suffixes derive from Classical Armenian. The Western suffix -e is from the Classical singular and the Eastern suffix -its is from the Classical plural; both have been generalized for singular and plural in the dialects that use them.

In Armenian, the ablative case has several uses.

Uralic languages

Finnish

In Finnish, the ablative case is the sixth of the locative cases with the meaning "from, off, of", e.g. pöytä – pöydältä "table – off from the table". It is an outer locative case, used just as the adessive and allative cases to denote both being on top of something and "being around the place" (as opposed to the inner locative case, the elative, which means "from out of" or "from the inside of"). In the locative meaning, the receding object was near the other place or object, not inside it.

The Finnish ablative is also used in time expressions to indicate start times (e.g. kymmeneltä "at ten") as well as with verbs expressing feelings or emotions.

The Finnish ablative has the ending -lta or -ltä according to the regular rules of vowel harmony.

Usage

away from a place
with the verb lähteä (stop)
to smell/taste/feel/look/sound like something

Hungarian

The ablative case in Hungarian is used to describe movement away from a solid object. For example, if one is walking away from a friend one could say: a barátomtól jövök - I am coming (away from) my friend.

Use of this case implies movement from next to the solid object, and not from inside it. So a postától jövök would mean one had been standing next to the post office, and not inside the building.

The application of vowel harmony gives two different suffixes: -tól and -től. These are applied to back- and front-vowel words respectively.

In contrast, the cases used to express movement towards a solid object and for being next to that solid object are the allative case and the adessive case respectively. The cases for movement away from, or out of, something are the delative case (for movement from a surface or from a Hungarian city) and the elative case (for movement out of a container or from out of a foreign city).[3]

Turkic languages

Azeri

The ablative in Azeri (çıxışlıq hal) is expressed through the suffixes -dan or -dən. Examples:

Ev - evdən
House - from/off the house

Aparmaq - aparmaqdan
To carry - from/off carrying

Turkish

The ablative in Turkish (-den hali or uzaklaşma hali) is expressed through the suffixes -den, -dan, -ten, or -tan. Examples:

Ev - evden
House - from/off the house

At - attan
Horse - from/off the horse

Taşımak - taşımaktan
To carry - from/off carrying

Ses - sesten
Sound/volume - from/off sound/volume

In some situations simple ablative can have a ”because of” meaning, in these situations ablative can be optionally followed by ”dolayı” (because of) preposition.

Yüksek sesten (dolayı) rahatsız oldum. / I was uneasy because of high volume.

References

  1. ↑ The Ablative , The Latin Library, accessed 06-01-14
  2. ↑ Herbert Weir Smyth. Greek Grammar. par. 1279: composite or mixed cases.
  3. ↑ Hungarian Ablative Case ,Hungarian Reference,1 June 2014

External links